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Wednesday, December 20, 2017

At our welcome dinner, we gave out thank you gifts to everyone who was involved in our wedding. Our friends and family were so incredibly generous, and we wanted to make sure everyone had a personal token of our appreciation. Here's what we gave everyone:

My parents love baking and had really enjoyed previous trips to King Arthur Flour, so we signed them up for a class on baguette making earlier in the week. They had a total blast and we were delighted to be able to use the many loaves they made during the welcome dinner!

Roger's parents had mentioned they were very excited to have some formal family portraits to hang on their walls, so we gave them a silver photo frame with our wedding date engraved on it. Now that we have our photos back from the photographer, we'll have one of the family portraits professionally printed for them so they can always remember the moment.

For our bridesmaids, we got some of my favorite things: monogrammed tote bags and pearl earrings! The groomsmen each got a bee-themed bow tie to wear the next day and a different pack of Timeline cards, since most of them had played with us in the past and really enjoyed it.

Each of the flower children received a stuffed toy of their favorite animal from Jelly Cat, because I'm a total Kate Middleton fangirl, along with a book about being a flower girl/ring bearer (someone should really write a non-gendered child-attendant book!), and the beautiful flower wands my sister handmade for each of them. She even included a monogram for each kid!

And for our readers and ushers, we got a special "Gray Barns Blend" of lemon verbena and mint tea custom made by Free Verse Farm, and gave it to them along with a small tea pot to enjoy it in.

I had such fun putting together these gifts, and I hope they helped show just a small amount of our gratitude to our incredible friends and family. This wedding was 110% a community effort, and we were overwhelmed by how wonderful everyone was the entire year of our engagement. Thank you to everyone!

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Maybe it was crazy to host a big party at our house the night before our wedding, but uur guests came from all around the country, so we wanted to make sure they had a full weekend of fun activities to help us celebrate. Everyone was a great sport and braved the chilly temperatures in our barn and the terrors of Vermont pizza. It was a blast to see everyone!

Laura and Molly helped me surprise Roger by making this cheese cake, which I knew he'd really wanted to have at the wedding. They took a few pinterest images and made something delicious and beautiful! And, we got to use the baguettes that my parents had baked the day before at the King Arthur Flour cooking class that we'd gotten them as a thank you gift for all of their support throughout the wedding planning process. It was perfect!

I'm so glad we asked our good friend Madhumita Das to take photos of the evening! As I learned at my bridal shower, you're too busy during these events to remember to take photos yourself, and although I know we made her job difficult with the low lighting in the barn, I think she captured the party as it was and got some gorgeous images. I especially love this photo of my sister:

And, Jill was awesome enough to set up our guests with a custom Snapchat filter, an awesome nod to my love of social media:

Afterward, we headed back to the hotel, ready to become husband and wife!

Friday, December 8, 2017

Saint Nicholas Day was a little quieter this year than it has been in the past (2012 and 2014 seem to have been captured over here), because I've been a bit lazy with wrapping and it turned out we didn't want to eat any German food that evening, but it was still fun to mark the day with some citrus and a few gifts.

I actually gave R. most of his gifts that evening because of travel plans, so don't worry—it's not usually this big of a haul! As per tradition, it usually fits in a pair of slippers in the morning.

Our lives have been in such flux the last few years that it's fun to keep a few small traditions like this going. Now that we're more settled (though you wouldn't know it from how much work needs to be done on the house!), I'm looking forward to creating more routines around the holidays like this!

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Does it warrant it's own blog post? Yes. Because there isn't enough joy in the world lately and this—the retweet, the article about princesses, the references to a Sarah Lawrence girl, all of it—is bringing me an immense amount of joy and I want to remember that.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

After decorating the Skiway, we went back to the house to get ready, and things got a little frantic.

Roger had to: A. fix a leak in the water heater in our barn, which suddenly decided to start pouring water all over our rehearsal dinner space about 15 minutes before we had to leave for the hotel, then B. run to Dan & Whits to grab emergency champagne when we realized the Coop had failed to include the two cases we'd order in his pick up, and then C. go back to the house after we got to the hotel when he realized he forgot his belt.

It was a whirlwind, and stressful, but we made it to St. Thomas Episcopal Church relatively unharmed, and from there on out, things were a lot more relaxed.

When we arrived, so many people we love were waiting for us outside the church, and it was such a magical feeling to see everyone and to finally feel like things were getting real.

Because people had to travel so far, I was a little worried about people being late, but everyone managed to make it in on time, even Rob and Dave, who must have been driving pretty fast after they got a late start out of Boston that afternoon.

The rehearsal went off without a hitch, with our ushers, readers, and bridal party all working out perfectly. We had gone over the ceremony with our priest about a month earlier, so everything went pretty smoothly, although we had to decide on the spot if we would kiss during the ceremony (a funny moment was when I said no and Roger said yes at the exact same moment--spoiler alert, we did!), and we had to remind him that our friend Christine was reading the prayers at the end of the service.

Not all of the flower children were able to make it to the rehearsal, but about half of them were, including head flower girl Hailey, who, as the only one over the age of three, was able to help her two-year-old cousin Zoe walk down the aisle the next day.

And, in between the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, I ran over to my office, to leave our wedding cake and reception sign near the refrigerator, for my amazing friend, colleague, and day-of coordinator Laura Jean to bring over to the Dartmouth Skiway the next day.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

We had a lovely weekend of holiday festivities this weekend, starting with the Hanover Christmas tree lighting, hot cocoa and cookies and a gingerbread house at the Hanover Inn, and drinks with friends on Friday evening. On our way home, I commented on how full I was from the appetizers we'd eaten, and then we bought a pizza anyway.

Saturday we spent lazing about, then had headshots taken, did a bit of shopping and then lazed about some more. Glorious!

And then on Sunday, I woke up to a small flock of turkeys invading our back yard. We hadn't seen them in a while, so I was pretty pleased to see the five of them wandering about. Kitty was intrigued.

They made their way out of the yard and I kept reading in bed, until I heard a loud rustling outside, which turned out to be their friends, about 25 of them. The rustling was two turkeys flying into the tree to keep lookout. It was pretty spectacular and an excellent way to start the day.

In the afternoon, we headed to Billings Farm and Woodstock to see some of their holiday displays. This coming weekend is Wassail Weekend, which sounds extremely idyllic, but tends to be quite crowded, so it was nice to spend some time wandering around the empty museum and admiring their animals and holiday decor.

We also stopped briefly at the Woodstock Inn to see their Christmas decorations:

And left with some inspiration for our house. We aren't decorating much this year, but a few festive touches here and there will be lovely.